Lionfish Deadly Art

I'm Steve Backshall. This is Deadly Art.

I'm lucky enough to travel the world tracking deadly animals.

But in this show, my team of artists take my killer moments...

..and turn it into art.

And we'll reveal another unique creation.

Along the way, you'll pick up some tips, tricks and techniques,

so you can make some art yourself.

This is no ordinary art show, this is Deadly Art.

'Coming up on Deadly Art,

'I come across a flamboyant fish

'with a lethal strike.'

Oh, unbelievable!

'The deadly artists recreate another killer moment.'

-You can imagine it about to gobble us up in one gulp...

-Wah!

-Agh!

'And you can get creative too.

'What are we looking at today?'

Red means danger,

especially for the victims of today's

colourfully calculating creature. Meet the lionfish.

With its extendable fins, like a lion's mane,

you can see where it gets its name from.

This fishy predator looks stunning to us

and very obvious when it's out in the open.

But those striking stripes

help to break up its outline against the reef,

so they work as camouflage.

Not only that, but those super sharp spines are linked to venom glands.

This is a fish with a sting.

I can't wait to see what our team

will make of this deceptively deadly creature.

So who is taking on the Deadly Art challenge today?

I'm Jo, I'm a painter and a general mess maker.

I'm Mike, a cartoon artist, and I'm up for today's Deadly Art.

Mike and Jo are representing the Deadly Art team,

who are always up for a challenge,

and this is today's killer moment to inspire the artwork.

The lionfish is such a good candidate

because of those amazing stripes.

And it's alien-like, but so beautiful at the same time.

-Let's get on with our...

-BOTH: Massive sculpture!

Chicken wire and wood is going to form the basis

of our lionfish sculpture.

We've got the skeleton of a lionfish drawn out.

I'm just finishing off those deadly spines.

Now for the fun bit, cutting it out.

Well, it is Deadly Art, so it's got to include the use of power tools.

But our artists are trained professionals,

so don't try anything you see in our big art.

Mike and Jo's lionfish

will look fantastic

just like the ones I met in Borneo.

Night time is perfect

for these stealthy predators

to come out and hunt,

and I wanted to take a closer look.

Huge fins held out to the side

and the spines go down to the tip.

They are all super sharp,

and at the base of them

is a venom gland filled with poison.

When chasing its prey,

it just relies on speed.

Oh, dear, there's a small fish over here

which doesn't know the trouble

it's getting itself into.

The lionfish has spotted it,

this could be trouble.

It's moving in.

Oh! Oh!

Unbelievable!

Did you see the speed of that strike?

That is so cool.

Oh, look, it's going to happen again.

I have a feeling

it could well be dinner time.

Oh, don't do it...

It did it again!

This is the most

astounding display of feeding

I think I've ever seen.

That was a phenomenal experience.

Let's see how Mike and Jo are getting on.

Our wooden skeleton's cut out and fitted together,

bulked out with chicken wire to give our lionfish some shape,

and now I'm attaching the front section.

Our lionfish will be massive.

All lionfish have unique fins. For ours,

I'm wrapping some armature wire around our skeleton

so when they stick out,

it creates a movement at the side of our sculpture.

Now we need to make a covering for our lionfish.

I'll show you a really cool technique

you might have heard of - tie-dye.

We've taken some plain white fabric, rolled it up,

tied it off into sections.

I'm going to dip it into this brown fabric dye.

Really let it soak in.

That needs a few minutes.

This one has already been soaking for a while, and I'll show you

when you take the string off it,

you're left with a really nice white stripe.

Just like the markings on the lionfish.

We've a lot of covering to do, so I'd better get on.

Nice one, Jo. Over to Mike, it's Deadly Doodle time.

This is one of the simplest doodles we've ever done.

It starts from the centre of our paper.

I'm going to start with the big egg, for the body,

do a circle for one of the eyes,

a backwards C for the other eye, on the other side of the body.

My favourite part of this drawing -

a little hotdog for the mouth. To add in the fins,

draw a line, coming from the body to each corner of your paper.

For the tail,

draw a wiggly line coming down.

Then add in your spines,

just like a Mohawk down the middle of his back.

And draw in two antennae.

0K. That's our pencil sketch done.

Take a black marker and add some details.

Go back over those lines for the fins

and just keep going back out to points

and back in towards the body with wavy lines.

Kind of drawing a leaf shape of a plant.

Same again on the other side.

Part of the reason this is so simple is that each lionfish is different,

so it doesn't matter how you draw it, it'll look great every time.

Same with the spines, add in spikes at the top

going over those lines you did earlier for his Mohawk,

but adding sharp little points at the top.

For the tail, go back over your line

and just draw a few wiggly lines coming back towards the body.

That's his tail fin. Go back over the antennae.

Now we'll add details for the eyes.

Here's a great little tip - to do a fish eye, just draw the number six.

Do that for both pupils.

For the hot dog mouth,

split it in half, add a little bit of opening,

colour that in. Go round the body one more time.

Now all you have to do is colour it in.

Draw in some spines for the body.

This is how the fins are held to the fish.

Finally, you can add in some markings.

All right. How's that for a Deadly Doodle?

I love that cartoony lionfish.

So how did some of you get on drawing this doodle?

We went to Swindon on a Deadly day out, and here's all the action.

Lines going down our back... to mark out the spine.

Deadly!

I'm Zoe, and this is my Deadly Doodle.

I like the eyelids and the stripes.

I'm Sam, and this is my Deadly Doodle.

Deadly Art rocks!

Keep on doodling. Let's get back to the Deadly Art studio.

A lionfish's stripes

are perfect camouflage. I'm painting on these stripes

so that they match the contours of the body.

The tie-dye material is nice and dry

and as you can see, the face has been moulded out of chicken wire.

All that's left to do is to lay this over,

then tuck into and around the eye,

folding around the eyebrows,

down to those big lionfish lips.

And if you like the lionfish's gulping mouth, check out this DIY.

I'm going to show you a DIY of

a lionfish with a deadly bite.

Yum, yum, yum!

Starting off with that beautiful fin,

I'm taking a thick wax crayon

and I'll cut some notches out of it.

If you're doing this at home, get an adult to help you.

I've got some cream card here.

I'm going to start off by making an arc like a rainbow.

All the way up, beautiful markings.

I'll go with the darker red

to draw in between those lines. Great.

The next thing I'll do is concertina it all together

and make a fan.

We start off by folding it in half,

just lots of folding,

always working towards the centre.

Keep folding until you get all the way to the end of the card.

Then you have a nice fan,

and using those upper creases as a guide,

we're going to cut out those lovely spiny fin shapes.

So that's our side fin,

and I've got another one for the other side,

then two smaller ones for these top and bottom spines.

For the body, I've got some foam board

and stuck some same colour paper on it.

Then we're going to go and draw a large egg shape.

And using the same technique,

I'll just go straight up and down for the markings.

Then a little bit of dark red to make it a bit more interesting.

Now we just need to cut it out.

It goes over here, and I need to make a hole for that snappy mouth.

That mouth is going to be made out of a binder clip.

What we are going to do is get the ends of it,

just make a mark which will show us where to cut out.

Then cut out a little rectangle

for that mouth to fit into.

OK.

Now we need to cover the mouth.

I've got the same piece of paper as before,

and I've drawn round it to create a T-shape.

I'm using double-sided tape to cover that clip.

I've got another bit of paper

that should just cover up that top bit.

There you have your little snappy mouth.

We'll put all those elements together,

gluing this one to the front

and the other side to the back.

Now we can turn it over,

put his mouth in.

I've got some googly eyes that you can get from a craft store,

which I'm going to stick on.

One last thing - I'm going to give him some antennae.

For that, I've got two orange straws.

I'm going to cut them at a little angle.

I've got two polyballs which I'll glue to the end.

Because I've cut them at an angle, they're quite sharp,

so they should just push straight into the side of our foam board.

So there we have our beautiful snappy lionfish.

Is that deadly enough for you?

Love the idea of using a clip for a mouth.

Back to the Big Art, and it's all coming together.

That's it, they've finished.

So, another Big Art complete.

The dying works so well for these markings.

It shows off the striking stripes on these extendable fins.

-You can imagine it about to gobble us up in one gulp...

-Wah!

-Agh!

Definitely deadly, Mike!

I asked the Deadly Art team

to recreate these killer shots

and turn them into art.

So let's take a look at the finished work of art.

This lionfish is enormous!

The lionfish's bright colours make it

like a swimming ninja in stripy pyjamas,

and this model is exactly the same.

The dorsal fins that run down its back,

they're the ones that deliver the venom,

and here, they are truly massive.

A true venomous killer of the seabed

and definitely deadly.

Nice work, team.

What an incredible creation!

Make sure you try the Doodle and the DIY,

and we'll see you next time for more Deadly Art.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd